Recent domestic events have heightened the need for an effective manner in which to assure the uncontaminated delivery of contained products to a consumer, particularly medicinal products taken internally. Specifically needed is a container for such products which bears assuring indication to the consume that the contents have not been tampered with from their point of manufacture to the point of consumer sale.
A fundamental prior art approach toward meeting this need is seen in the so-called "telltale" indication, i.e., a readily discernible characteristic indicative of tampering, such as a signal that some person has previously attempted to gain access to the container contents. Broadly speaking, this approach can be generalized as placing a tamper-indicating member in the path of access to a container to indicate tampering by discernible change. Categorizing telltale types, one finds in the prior art approaches elements which evidence color change, which mechanically present literal messages, and which are ruptured or torn upon the occurrence of tampering. The color change devices may be considered less than desirable in requiring ambient-sensitive constituents and measures for sealing same from the ambient environment. The mechanical devices providing literal indication, i.e., the words "closed" or "open" are moved into a viewing window, are inherently complex and customized. Of these three categories, the rupturing and tearing practice offers the est potential for desired simplicity.
Prior art telltales may also be categorized in respect of the relative location of the telltale to the container access port. Here, one finds efforts in which the telltales are located directly at the access port and wherein the telltales are located otherwise in the path of access to the container. In the former locational practices, telltales directly span the access opening, e.g., are secured across the mouths of jars. In the latter practices, the telltales are located in container wrappers, within plastic sleeves which are heat shrunk about the capped jar, etc. Clearly, the effective location for a telltale is directly at the access port, since wrappers, heat shrunk plastic sleeves and like telltale items located outside the container cap may be removed and the remaining capped container is without tamper indicating capability.
Prior art telltale indication ma be further categorized as of types wherein the telltale directly at the access opening is closure member activated or not. In the cap activated category, reverse sense (opening) movement of the closure member brings some element into tearing relation with the telltale. In the non-activated case, the telltale is unaffected by closure member removal. Clearly, the closure member activated case affords greater security.
Specific prior art patents depicting the foregoing practices are identified and discussed in detail in the statement pursuant to 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98 filed herein.
Of such prior art patents, Waring U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,131,774 and 2,131,775 may be considered to disclose tamper-indicating containers incorporating the desired of the foregoing categories of tamper indication. In these containers, the tamper-indicating element is simple rupturable sheet material. The element is located directly at the container mouth opening and is cap-activated. In accommodating this operative selection of features, however, Waring has vulnerability, recognized expressly in the '774 patent, to direct tampering with telltale element.
The Waring '774 practice is to provide a cap in the form of a hollow cylinder having a skirt depending from the cap top and interiorly threaded to receive the jar neck. The cap top is centrally open and prongs are formed in the plane of the cap and extend into the central opening. The telltale element is nested in the cap interior suitably secured therein. The cap with its nested telltale is then rotated into closed relation with the jar. Now the prongs are bent out of the plane of the cap top and into puncturing relation with the telltale element, remaining accessible through the open cap top.
In commenting on this aspect of his capped container, Waring states that if one tampers with the prongs, i.e., by end same out of such ruptured relation with the telltale element, the consumer can detect such tampering by observing the state of the prongs said to be deformed on reinsertion and by observing the state of the telltale element said to be thus marred. Such ultimate reliance on demanding observations and dutiful minute examination by the consumer renders the Waring approach ineffective, despite its inclusion of the most effective o the outlined prior art tamper-indicating practices. Its shortcoming indicates still another essential practice for providing effective taper indication, namely, that the rupturing elements and telltale must be maintained inaccessible.
In related considerations, applicants see as highly desirable characteristics of effective tamper indication such matters as equipping closure members with complete tamper-indicating capability at the point of their manufacture, enabling them to be made without customized cap structure or cap-working steps as in the Waring approach, and as adapted for use with the widespread varieties of caps currently in production. Thus, an effective tamper-indicating technique should accommodate existing commercial practices in the cap and container manufacturing industries.